How to recruit and develop a rock star team
Written by Hazel Chua, based on Mixergy’s interview with Johnny Chan about hiring.
After firing over a hundred employees, Johnny Chan mastered the skills to recruit and develop 25 employees who are landing clients and expanding his business. He did it by improving his firm’s interview process and employee training program, so we invited him to teach you how to do it.
Johnny is the co-founder of e-Boost Consulting, a digital consultancy firm that builds integrated marketing plans to scale high-growth entrepreneurial firms.
Here are a few actionable highlights from the interview. (Here’s the full Johnny Chan hiring interview.)
1. Manage yourself
- Benefit
- By managing yourself, you can prioritize and get more things done.
- How
- Begin by listing down five high-impact items that should be accomplished by the end of each workday.
- Example
- Johnny had his employee, Nick, do this every day, and now Nick is managing over 40 employees with a $7 million P&L.
2. Adopt a leadership pipeline
- Benefit
- By adopting a leadership pipeline, you can systematically assess and facilitate the growth and development of each employee.
- How
- Evaluate your team based on their work skills, work values, and time application.
- Example
- Johnny and his team conduct quarterly 360 reviews to evaluate the performance of each employee.
3. Develop an interview process
- Benefit
- By employing a systematic interview process, you can narrow down the applicants to those who would actually be a good fit more quickly.
- How
- Set up an initial pre-screen, followed by a work skills interview, a work values interview, and a 360 interview.
- Example
- Johnny used this process to interview Matt and encourage him to join e-Boost’s internship program, because although he was talented, he still lacked certain skills.
4. Test drive talent with an internship program
- Benefit
- An internship program lets you recruit talent and determines who is best suited for a job at your firm since you can actually see them working.
- How
- Set up the internship program as a mini-firm with its own interviewing team that follows the same values your company does.
- Example
- Through e-Boost’s internship program, Johnny discovered superstar employee Chris, who landed a big client during his first week as an associate.
5. Train your team with an intensive 5-week program
- Benefit
- By having a comprehensive 5-week training program, you can develop your team’s behavior and motivations and set the tone for their expectations.
- How
- Develop strategic and tactical competence during the first two weeks, have them do actual client work in the next three, and wrap everything up with an executive challenge.
- Example
- After Johnny had a new employee, Janey, go through the training program, the first project she took on was working on deliverables for a client that was valued at $30 million.
6. Create a self-policing structure for your company
- Benefit
- Having a self-policing structure develops a culture of teaching in the company so you won’t have to do everything yourself.
- How
- Establish learning days at your company and have your employees conduct weekly learning sessions.
- Example
- Johnny holds weekly training sessions with his team where they talk about wins, how they were achieved, and how it can contribute to the organization.